Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/119

Or else a pictured ceiling overhead,
Good painting thrown away. For me, I’ve done
What women may, (we’re somewhat limited,
We modest women) but I’ve done my best.
—How men are perjured when they swear our eyes
Have meaning in them! they’re just blue or brown,—
They just can drop their lids a little. In fact,
Mine did more, for I read half Fourier through,
Proudhon, Considerant, and Louis Blanc
With various other of his socialists;
And if I had been a fathom less in love,
Had cured myself with gaping. As it was,
I quoted from them prettily enough,
Perhaps, to make them sound half rational
To a saner man than he, whene’er we talked,
(For which I dodged occasion)—learnt by heart
His speeches in the Commons and elsewhere
Upon the social question; heaped reports
Of wicked women and penitentiaries,
On all my tables, with a place for Sue;
And gave my name to swell subscription-lists
Toward keeping up the sun at nights in heaven,
And other possible ends. All things I did,
Except the impossible . . such as wearing gowns
Provided by the Ten Hours’ movement! there,
I stopped—we must stop somewhere. He, meanwhile,
Unmoved as the Indian tortoise ’neath the world
Let all that noise go on upon his back;
He would not disconcert or throw me out;
’Twas well to see a woman of my class